For businesses large and small, relying on a cloud-based collaboration and productivity suite such as Microsoft Office 365 is becoming the norm. Enhancing productivity in your organisation is vital to get ahead in 2017 - and using Office 365 can help, if it's used right...

Dolphin surfaces with plans for CDMA

Radiocommunications Agency says it must stick to Tetra

Dolphin Telecom has been warned that its licence can only be used for Tetra amid suggestions that its network could be migrated to a rival technology.

The telco has surfaced after 10 months in administration following its acquisition by Inquam. It operates a national network based on the Tetra professional two-way radio standard.

Wireless technology company Qualcomm is one of Inquam's biggest shareholders, leading to suggestions that the new owners of Dolphin will consider ditching Tetra in favour of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), which Qualcomm is known to favour.

John Fletcher, senior consultant at Analysys Consulting, said that Qualcomm has a long history of lobbying hard for its CDMA technology.

"Given its history of lobbying and its activities in other markets, it seems inevitable that Inquam will seek permission to deploy CDMA technology in this spectrum," he explained.

"I think that is why the other networks are complaining: it is not that someone has bought Tetra, because that represented no commercial threat to either 2G or 3G networks."

However, in a recent consultation document by the Radiocommunications Agency (RA) on the allocation of bandwidth to Dolphin in the 900MHz spectrum, Vodafone opposed "any special, non-transparent arrangements for spectrum re-farming from Tetra by Dolphin when in current or new ownership".

None of the four mobile phone operators were listed in the report as being in favour of Dolphin being awarded extra spectrum.

A source close to Inquam insisted that the company plans to maintain a Tetra network and that Tetra 2 is seen as the current upgrade technology.

But she warned that if Tetra 2 was not available at the time Inquam would have to consider alternative technologies.

"CDMA is considered as an alternative to Tetra 2," said the source. "However, regulatory modifications to amend the current licence would be carried out."

But a spokesman for the RA said that each of the licences held by Dolphin in the 410-430MHz and 900MHz spectrum are ring-fenced for Tetra.

"The licence condition is that it has to be Tetra technology," said the spokesman. "It can't be CDMA."